Thanks for all the positive feedback, everyone! It's great to find like minded vegans and vegetarians. I'm looking forward to keeping up with you all in your journals and walking away with some new exercises and training techniques.

Right now I'm preparing for a meet in February to compete in the AAPF. Provided my weight loss continues at a reasonably slow rate, I'm hoping to get down to 250 without losing too much strength and try to cut to make it to the 242 weight class. I'll be competing in a geared competition at that time with a Metal Pro Squater, Metal Ace bench shirt, and will be pulling in some loose (tight gear seems to put me in a bad position) Metal briefs and a singlet. An Elite total for this weight class is 1790, so that's my goal.

My mind was sort of frazzled before the gym today and I wasn't really focused so a lot of this was more trying than normal. I managed to get through to my goal weight for the day, but to say it was difficult is an understatement.

525 x 1This came up pretty easily so I decided I would try for a PR today. I was a little bit too confident and had what my training partners call a "soft lockout." Basically, they said that the chances of it being two white lights were pretty good, but I don't want to get in the habit of making it "look" like I did something rather than actually doing it and making it look easy.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ3M_bJegoU&feature=plcp[/youtube]

No drop set today. No real reason other than being lazy and my forearms hurting really badly.

After I was releasing my grip on the barbell after benching, my forearms were in a huge amount of pain. It's been going on for a week now, so while at work I bought a brace that's used for tennis elbow. I was talking to my training partner Jo about it and he says that it's probably because of an irregular emphasis on a set of muscle groups without training the rest. He said that because so much of what we do focuses squeezing the bar as hard as we can, we neglect the muscles that allow our hands to open and it creates an imbalance. The man's got a 650 lb. bench record, so I think I'll heed his advice and see what happens.

Back to pulling sumo now that I'm done with the Coan Routine. Truthfully, I think that I'm just a little too plump and have arms that are a little too close to a Tyrannosaurus to consider pulling conventional in a meet. It's probably smart to still do them as accessory work just to strengthen my lower back, but other than that I'll probably just stick with sumo. Stayed light and did reps to get back into the groove.

I'm sort off my training schedule this week because I had a huge exam earlier this week and didn't make it to the gym. Getting back on it though. Still at 260.5 in my weight so I think it's back to doing cardio and keeping a closer eye on my diet. I just have an abusive relationship with peanut butter.. sigh.

Exhausted going into the gym today so I did what I needed to and then got out as quickly as possible. I hate rep work too so this made it even more difficult to get motivated to bench. I used the Fat Bar today to try to cheer myself up. It only weighs 15 lbs. but it's significantly more thick; to the point that I can't wrap my hands around it and touch my fingers.

To be fair, I'm vegetarian. I've been vegetarian for about eight years now, but am heading toward being more vegan. I don't eat a ton of dairy or eggs now (80% of my meals are vegan), but I'm trying to ween those out.

They are nice, aren't they? I've watched one of the guys at our facility squat 800 with one and do some 900 lb. rack pulls with it, not a millimeter of flex, and nobody could pile enough weight on one to ever have a need for more room

_________________"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

They are nice, aren't they? I've watched one of the guys at our facility squat 800 with one and do some 900 lb. rack pulls with it, not a millimeter of flex, and nobody could pile enough weight on one to ever have a need for more room

I'm not where near being able to handle that kind of weight... yet. Good to know that I'll have the right equipment for when I am!

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